Is there really no such thing as a free entertainment lunch? Depends on who you're asking. Sony and Tivoli Audio have just introduced free (at least for a while) music streaming apps for the iPhone/iPod. But three broadcast networks yesterday filed suits against satellite TV provider Dish Network, to try and squash the "Auto Hop" feature on new DVR boxes that makes prime time viewing ad-free.

Radio  Free World: While Boston-based, Tivoli Audio sells 60 percent of its' stylish radio products overseas and has come to have a deep appreciation of global radio entertainment. The proof is in the free Tivoli Audio app for the iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad and Android that offers up push button access to 100 of the world's best stations, as defined by "quality of content,  streaming quality and reliability," said Tivoli Audio founder/CEO/designer Tom DeVesto. "There are now 40,000 internet radio stations worldwide, which makes searching for the best - in categories like rock, classical, folk and jazz - quite daunting. This is a great way to jump in with a positive experience."

Tivoli Audio makes a very nice stand-alone internet radio called NetWorks and built a good data base of audience favorites from it.  But it's frankly hoping the free mobile internet radio app will do more to sell its new Radio Silenz active noise-reduction headphones and forthcoming Bluetooth-enabled versions of its Pal portable and iconic Model One table radio.

 You do have to suffer a little on-screen advertising to get to the otherwise free, streaming radio channels in the Tivoli app, but  the touts are very low keyed.

Sony Spreads MU: Sony Entertainment Network's Music Unlimited streaming music service launched this morning as an app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The download's free and so's the first, trial month of service of the premium version, normally  $10 a month deal.  I tapped in and was instantly enjoying just-out albums like John Mayer's retro-folky "Born and Raised," The Cult's pungent comeback "Choice of Weapon," plus the "Vow" set from sensitive girl of the hour Kimbra (of Gotye duet fame) and a sadly posthumous but good rocking session from  Joey Ramone, ". . . ya know?"

 Previously available just on Sony products (like the PS3 and Vita game systems, Bravia TVs, Android tablets and Xperia smartphones), MU also offers a "sync with your PC-stored music" feature and a bunch of commercial-free radio stations categorized by genre and mood - the latter particularly interesting. There's also $4 a month version of MU which features only the sync and radio stations streams.

We Saw It Coming: NBC/Universal, CBS and Fox all filed law suits yesterday against  Dish Network in an effort to squash the new Dish Hopper DVR feature which lets users automatically skip all commercials during replays of those networks' (and ABC's) prime time shows.

 Clearly seeing it coming, Dish lawyers instantly fired back with a countersuit, arguing that the Auto Hop feature is simply the next iteration of  DVR and VCR viewing tools which have long  offered users the option to skip over commercials.

In a press statement rationalizing its' suit, NBC/Universal was most blunt in asserting there can be no such thing as an ad-free lunch, without broadcast TV going bye-bye. "Advertising generates the revenue that makes it possible for local broadcast stations and national broadcast networks to pay for the creation of the news, sports and entertainment programming that are the hallmark of American broadcasting. Dish simply does not have the authority to tamper with the ads from broadcast replays on a wholesale basis for its own economic and commercial advantage."

There's some speculation that Dish Network chairman Charlie Ergen is using Auto Hop as a bargaining chip to get lower retranmission rates out of the networks. In the meantime, his newly spruced-up satellite TV service is getting LOTS of buzz.

Did Facebook buy Instagram to prevent a serious patent infringement suit?

Just a month after announcing its intent to buy the social photo site for a cool billion bucks, Facebook today launched a new application for iPhones (3GS and forward) and the iPod Touch called Facebook Camera that performs many of the same functions in similar fashion.

While the media focused on the new Wi-Fi hotspot roaming agreement announced this week at The Cable Show, there was lots more innovation popping up at the Boston trade event - new platforms, apps and services. And in panel discussions, chief technology officers from Comcast and Time Warner  kept pushing the message of change and innovation to deal with the evolving needs/tastes of customers  and the strategies of rivals. 

Comcast's Slant: "I think the whole world's moving faster," said Comcast Chief Technology Officer Tony Werner in his comments to the cable community. "We have to step it up," citing Comcast's new forays into Skype on TV, home security and energy management and monitoring, plus its new X1 cloud-based Internet Protocol video platform. "We'll see which ones have stickiness," he said.

Rolling out soon in Boston and coming to "5 to 10 more markets" by year's end, X1 looks even spiffier than its prototype predecessor, Xcalibur, which Comcast showed me last year. While offering users the chance to multi-task - simultaneously watching a TV show while also checking out news headlines, ball scores, weather and messages from Facebook and Twitter friends - the screen never looks too cluttered. The graphic layout is very clean, with an easy-on the-eyes typeface, charcoal-toned backdrops and just tasteful splashes of color.  Comcast also seems to have fine tuned/narrowed the X1 search engine, so it looks for stars, movies, directors etc. within the mega-company's own universe of content already recorded on the DVR, available on demand or coming up soon in the program guide listings.  I'd previously been told it "could" also locate  content from sites like YouTube, though that option seems to have been eliminated in Comcast's new (Apple-like) walled gatden content approach.

But now you can also run your Comcast home security and management  system through the same user interface - calling up a baby-cam image, changing the air conditioning  setting  and arming the alarm system from the same intergrated remote control used for all the TV and social network apps. 

The Price To Pay: Because X1 requires serious processing power, the platform will only work with brand new and recently installed high end cable boxes, and so initially will be available just to Comcast's most profitable customers that take the Triple Play - TV, internet and home phone.

A mobile phone threat:  Another incentive to bundle up is Comcast's newly announced Voice2go Wi-Fi calling service, which invites customers to make calls and send texts for free within a Wi-Fi network  on their mobile device using their home phone number and Comcast's Xfinity Connect Mobile app for iOS and Android. The new app also lets a customer create four virtual phone numbers for family members to use with  Xfinity Connect Mobile. Suddenly, that newly announced national Wi-Fi hotspot roaming agreement ("CableWiFi") between Comcast, Time Warner, Bright House, Cox and Cablevision is looking more valuable.

Time is Ticking: From Time Warner Cable's perspective, priority nunber one is for cable operators to deliver their "full array of content" to every video capable gadget both inside and outside the house, said chief strategy officer Peter Stern. "People don't just watch video inside the house anymore. Thirty percent of viewing now takes place outside the house." He also warned that Netflix's ubiquitous streaming service is eating cable's lunch. 7 million of Netfllx's 25 million subscribers do not use any other pay service, potentially costing cable operators $45-$50 per subscriber.

Stern also raised the possibility that the traditional cable set-top will soon go away, its functionality fully baked  into smart TV sets as Samsung has already demonstrated. ""If you do the math" (set top rentals are) "not a very good business," said Stern. "I'd happily walk away from that revenue." Added Comcast's Werner, "I think Google would've wished you said something about that before they bought Motorola." 

We should all hit the pause button for a second for Eugene Polley, a tech innovator often called the  czar of zapping, father of the couch potato and first beach boy of channel surfing.

Polley, who died of natural causes on Sunday at age 96, was best known as the inventor of the first wireless remote control for television, during his long stint working for Zenith Radio Corporation (now called Zenith Electronics and a subsidary of LG Electronics).

 His brainstorm was a space age styled zap gun that sent light signals to four photo cells placed in the corners of the TV screen. "A flash of magic light across the room (no wires, no cords) turns the set on, off or changes channels . . . and you remain in your easy chair," touted an advertisement  for the device, a feature of Zenith sets from 1956 forward priced at $149.95 and up.

Oh, and there was another feature built-in, on orders from Commander Eugene F. McDonald Jr., the founder/president of Zenith. McDonald believed TV viewers would not tolerate commercials and tried to promote the concept of commercial-free television (this decades before ad-free PBS became a force and subscription channels like HBO were born)

So in the interim, the Zenith CEO had Polley build a mute function into the Flash-Matic, touted separately and in red ink in the ads with the declaration "You can also shut off long, annoying commercials while pictures remain on screen!"

Then and Now: Tech followers have to be chuckling about that tout. The latest and most controversial new thing in television is the automatic commercial  skip feature (think a cloud-based remote control) built into DISH Network's new multi-room Hopper DVR system. This ad zapper (formally called Auto Hop) also eliminates, with surgical precision, all local cutaways ("We've got weather, at 11!") and works with the last 8 nights of prime time network programming (on ABC, CBS, FOX and  NBC) which are automatically recorded and stored on the Hopper.  According to several reports,  the networks are now looking for legal means to squash the feature, though previous efforts to ban remote control operations  like fast-forwarding and 30 second spot skipping were ultimately rejected by the courts.

Moving the Bar: Polley's original remote control was not long lived, even at Zenith. There had to be signal interference issues with the light-based  technology, because the next big thing in remote control, also from Zenith, was Dr. Robert Adler's Space Command, which touted "ultrasonic technology." In practice, a user was pushing down on buttons which activated hidden tuning forks (the mechanical task took some effort). The metal tongs then "boinged" (resonated) at specific frequencies, sending  high pitched cues to the TV set.

How far we've come!: Today's wireless remote controls use a variety of technologies -  from the now old-reliable infrared light to various radio frequency signaling methods, including Bluetooth and Wi-Fi wireless networking  (how your smart phone or tablet becomes a remote.) Then there's the next wave of motion, voice and face recognition remote control tech, using sonar and image capturing cameras, as found in current generation game systems and the latest high-end TV sets. A lot of these "breakthroughs"  are a joke. But, no surprise, Zenith's parent LG offers "Magic Motion," one of the most practical of wireless-mouse style remotes, to wave at and activate its newest line of Smart TVs.

If you travel, your high speed Internet account may have just gotten more useful. This morning, five major cable companies - Bright House Networks, Cablevision, Comcast, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable -  announced a joint partnership to enable free access to local WiFi hotspots for customers of any participating provider. 

To simplify access, a new unifying network brand "CableWifi" has been created for subscribers to identify on signage at available locations, sending the message "This hotspot's for you." At first, they'll sign on with the same credentials used on home turf. In a few months, users will be able to have their devices auto-connect to the internet whenever they're located in a "CableWiFi" zone, for free e-mailing, photo sharing, web searches, gaming, etc.

The system actually expands on a 2010 WiFi sharing agreement between Comcast, Cablevision and Time Warner Cable that covered Philadelphia, New Jersey, New York City, Long Island and Connecticut. The hotspot sharing will now grow to more than 50,000 locations with added service areas of Bright House Networks and Cox Communications.

Los Angeles and the touristy Florida towns Tampa and Orlando have been identified as early adopters with "several additional cities" coming soon.

Indoor and outdoor WiFi hotspots tend to be located in high foot traffic areas -  shopping districts,  cafes, malls, arenas, restaurants, rail line stations and some parks and beaches. None of Philadelphia's popular museums or historic sites popped up as hotspots, though, in my search of  Comcast Xfinity's coverage map this morning. Any way you could make CableWiFi access more tourist-friendly, guys?

Today's free at noon concert with Norah Jones, Willie Nelson and Brandi Carlisle (broadcast on 88.5 FM) is the most visible event of this week's "Non-Comm" non-commercial radio conference. But for Gizmo Guy, there was lots more to take away from media guru Pal Marszalek's "Digital State of the Union" address yesterday.

Formerly music programmer for VH1 and high profile radio stations WXRT and KFOG, Marszalek is now managing partner of Media Mechanics, which works with brands like Starbucks/Sirius XM, the Sierra Club and the non-partisan, globe hopping Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He counseled the non-commercial broadcasters to embrace the new media, even (facetiously) those stupid pet tricks videos which garner (by far) the most views on YouTube. Here's some of the other points he made.

Facebook: Has 900 million users, but only 13 percent trust it. And as the membership ranks and posts soar, the number of friends who actually see your posts drops to 3 to 7.5 percent." With GM pulling its advertising from Facebook, "but continuing to spend $40 million on Facebook content" Marszalek wonders about Facebook's long term chances as a money maker and stock.

Twitter: 500 million accounts, 175 million Tweets a day, "but only 36 percent of Tweets are worth reading," found a study by MIT. "Don't those researchers have something better to do?" Marszalek ponders.

YouTube: Video viewers are down 28 percent since March, in large part because the service is no longer recommending 30 second clips and poorly shot fan videos in favor of longer, more professional finished work. "They're going for quality over quantity, with their new 100 channel plan. It could work."

Mobile DTV: With a dongle connected to a PC or smart phone, you can now get a few digital television channels broadcast in the ATSC-Mobile/H format. While there isn't much there, as yet, the format could fly as "a bandwidth reliever," said the media guru, since it doesn't use the data from your internet service or mobile phone provider.

HD Radio: Slow out of the gate, this free, digital broadcast alternative could also serve as a bandwidth reliever and lower cost option to internet radio, which costs a station money to stream. But the number of radios that can tune in HD is low - "maybe tens of thousands in Philadelphia now. The backers like to say there's a new car sold with HD Radio reception every ten seconds, but if you do the math, that works out to 2 million radios a year. We've got a way to go."

One shining light here: Some broadcasters are re-transmitting their second, alternative HD stream via low power, conventional FM repeaters, "creating a legal duopoly."

Spotify: While claiming almost 20 million users worldwide, the Spotify streaming music service is losing money hand over fist - more than $60 million this year, That's because 90 percent of listeners "are satisfied listening to the free version with commercials, rather than paying for the $10 ad-free version, said Marszalek. "And the money Spotify can charge advertisers - the cost per thousand rate - is less than what they pay SoundExchange in royalties for the music."

Too Much Distribution and Not Enough Standout Content: While the major networks continue to do well - "taking in $70 to $80 billion in advertising this week at their upfronts," the smaller cable players are having a harder time getting noticed. "On a Saturday, Fox Business Network has a cume (cumulative) audience of just 2,500 to 3,000. And the Opray Winfrey Network is an unmitigated disaster, with an average prime time audience of 247,000. They assumed her audience would just follow her. They should have treated the channel as a startup."

Comcast announced today that it's eliminating the 250 GB data "cap" on internet access, established four years ago. Service now will start with a minimum 300 GB of data per month. What exactly does that buy you? 

Video Galore: Even Netflix - which has been crying foul over Comcast's non-metering  of its own movie streaming  service on the Xbox 360 - might have trouble grumbling over the 300 GB allowance and upgradability ("probably" in blocks of 50GB priced at $10.)  If you watch standard definition Netflix movies at the "Good Quality"  setting (adjustable in each app's Video Settings) that  300 GB translates to  1000 hours of viewing. If set to stream in "Best Quality," Netflix will deliver 300 hours of movies and TV shows in standard definition or 130 Hours in High Definition. So the latter HD scenario works out to about two long movies a day, every day.

How about music? The free version of Pandora running at 64 kbps could easily run all day and all night - delivering  10,950 hours of music  per  300 GB. If you bump up to premium Pandora or Rhapsody streaming at 192 kbps, the hours of use drops to a mere 3,650.

Rest Easy: A Comcast exec said the "usual usage" of monthly service by a customer is 8 to 10 GB. "There are very few customers who come even close to the 250 GB cap." Still, the company wants to assure  customers that they should never feel restricted in their activities. And of course, there are those legitimate users (not illegal file sharers) who do send large collections of high resolution photos or edit movies collaboratively on line. They could easily bump up against the limit. In the past, their overtaxed service would be "throttled" (slowed) or abruptly shut down. In the future, they'll be duly warned and given the option to buy more capacity.

Unfortunately, I didn't  get to ask a question during today's conference call about Comcast's trial of its spiffy Xfinity Video On Demand  service. Formerly called Xcaliber  and very much in the spirit of  Google TV,   this mixed menu of cable and VOD content has been tested in Augusta, Georgia and is coming soon to Boston (which oddly gets a lot more "perks" than Philly.)  As the service invites  a customer to search for (and pull down) content by topic, title, star or director  across numerous platforms, I'm thinking it encourages much higher internet data usage. So raising the opening threshold of data service to 300 GB would be a smart pre-emptive move on Comcast's part, before they drop (if ever) that other shoe.

An effective and affordable technology for viewing TV in 3D without wearing special glasses will come to market this year, said Philadelphia-based  Stream TV Networks, Inc., through its newly announced manufacturing partnership with Unihan (Pegatron) Corporation.

Stream TV's process - dubbed Ultra-D - will initially be implemented in a 42- inch 3D display and companion Ultra-D Seecube converter box, which handles the switching and processing of incoming signals and can "auto-convert" conventional 2D TV shows to 3D.

Viewable with good effect from many angles - unlike more restrictive "auto-stereoscopic" TVs shown by Toshiba and Philips - Ultra-D utilizes "a unique amalgam of hardware and software in perfect sync," shared Stream's announcement. "It introduces a layer of lenses on display panels that directs light at an optimal angle to create a 3D image for the human eye. Behind the scenes, a matrix of sophisticated algorithms scans an incoming feed to decipher the different layers that may be used to extrude and generate depth. This depth may either be user defined or computer generated."   

Manufacturing partner Unihan (Pegatron) is a Taiwan-based electronic and computing designer/manufacturer alligned with the ASUSTek group but spun off as a separate entity in 2008. Its' work is most visible here in ASUS brand laptops, desktop PCs  and monitors, including a 27-inch computer game monitor using Nvidia 3D Vision 2 chip set and active shutter glasses. The company also makes motherboards, broadband devices, wireless systems, game consoles, networking equipment and set-top boxes. Yesterday's partnership announcement with Stream TV was timed to the opening of the Computex show in Taiwan. 

Stream TV Networks is headquartered  in center city Philadelphia, with a satellite office in Silicon Valley and an R&D department in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Stream previously fielded a line of eLocity branded mobile tablets.  First claim to fame of brothers/founders Mathu and Raja Rajan was as co-inventors of ZeroWater, a proprietary water filtration system. 

Been thinking about buying an iPhone? If screen size counts, you might want to hold off a bit. A 6th generation iPhone growing the panel to "at least 4 inches diagonally" is set to begin production in June. 

So reports "people familiar with the situation" blabbing to the Wall Street Journal, also first to slip that a new, smaller screen iPad is on the way this fall. (WSJ's Walt Mossberg was thisclose to Apple founder Steve Jobs.) 

Apple had a great first quarter of sales for the iPhone, selling 35.1 mlliion units world wide. But that figure was boosted by newly opened markets like little ol' China. Here in the U.S., Verizon and AT&T were reporting a downturn in iPhone sales, with especially heated competition from all those different and larger screened  Android phones from Samsung, HTC, etc. which collectively outsell the iPhone. 

The WSJ reports Apple's new display will be supplied by LG, Sharp and Japan Display (a new joint-venture of Sony, Hitachi and Toshiba.) That seemingly puts the kabosh on a recent story that a flexible, non-breakable OLED screen would be part of the next iPhone package, as Samsung is leading in that tech innovation.  Korea Times said Samsung is  gearing up for mass production with "huge" orders  for the flexi-display. The publication speculated Apple could be at the front of the line.

Might the iPhone 5 (or whatever it's called)  screen grow to as big as 4.5 inches? That would put it nose-to-nose with popular phones like the Samsung Galaxy S II, which once seemed grossly oversized next to the iPhone but now seems more naturally 'hand sized" (unlike the still wierd to call on  5.3 inch Samsung Galaxy Note) Still, I'm thinking Apple will stick with a more modest uptick from its long-standard 3.5 inch display to a 4 incher. That screen size  could be integrated cosmetically into a tapered edge (not square sided) package barely bigger and maybe even lighter than the current iPhone 4S, thus providing more of an Apple "magic" trick.